Celebrating Black History Month

Black History Month is an important season here in the costume world, with lots of school activities, living history demonstrations, and even some fancy-dress galas. Historical costuming is a wonderful way to learn and celebrate history, and we’re always thrilled to help out with DIY costume ideas and resources. If you’re still in need of […]

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New year, new costumes

Greetings from the depths of winter! As I write this there’s a thick blanket of snow on the ground and ice on the windows. But it’s cozy here in my workroom, which is draped in chiffon and velvet as I plot out the costume designs for the new season. We have a very big year […]

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Halloween 2013 Costume Contest Winners!

We had over 200 entries to our costume contest this year, which was way more than we expected. That’s the kind of response big newspapers and magazines get when they run contests, though I daresay the level of quality of our entries was higher. But that just made the judging harder. To make it manageable, […]

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Last-minute Vestal Virgin

In the final run-up to Halloween, we’re offering tips on how to do last-minute, stripped-down versions of some of our popular costumes. Our Vestal Virgin outfit is the bedsheet costume to end all bedsheet costumes. It’s almost nothing but sheets. Plain white sheets. The only other thing you need is a scrap of something red […]

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Last-minute Glamour Grrl

In the final run-up to Halloween, we’re offering tips on how to do last-minute, stripped-down versions of some of our popular costumes. If you have an evening gown—a prom dress, a bridesmaids dress, any kind of formal—you can go as one of our Glamour Grrls. The trick is just to match the gown you already […]

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Last-minute Mary Read (or Anne Bonny)

In the final run-up to Halloween, we’re offering tips on how to do last-minute, stripped-down versions of some of our popular costumes. Here’s the thing about pirates: most of ’em wore rags. Their clothes were a wild mishmash of stolen loot, cast-offs, stuff they’d sewn themselves, and old clothes they’d been wearing since junior high […]

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Last-minute Tin Hinan

In the final run-up to Halloween, we’re offering tips on how to do last-minute, stripped-down versions of some of our popular costumes. Do you have any blue sheets? How about some blue curtain sheers, or maybe a blue shawl or scarf? If so, you can be Tin Hinan. Tin Hinan was the semi-legendary matriarch and […]

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Last-minute Demeter

In the final run-up to Halloween, we’re offering tips on how to do last-minute, stripped-down versions of some of our popular costumes. Do you have a sheet? Do you have food? Can you get some leaves (the kind that grow on trees)? If at least two of those things are true, then you can be […]

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And on to Operation Hecate!

Can you believe it? This is stunning. Thanks to the incredible outpouring of support for this project, we zoomed past our first stretch goal—Operation Ishtar—in only three days. Ishtar and Esther are booked! Thank you!!! Now we’re into our second stretch goal. In the continuing spirit of total nerddom, we’re calling it: Operation Hecate. (Imagine […]

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Welcome to Operation Ishtar!

Thanks to our wonderful backers, we’re now into the stretch goal phase of our Kickstarter. And because we’re total nerds, we have a name for it: Operation Ishtar. So, welcome to Operation Ishtar! The outpouring of enthusiasm for our project (and btw, we were just linked by Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, which is the coolest […]

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THANK YOU!!!

What an incredible day this has been! Exactly two weeks ago we launched our Kickstarter to fund the next year of Take Back Halloween. And today, less than halfway through our Kickstarter campaign, we reached 100% our initial goal! We’re doing the happy dance of joy, because now we know we’ll be able to bring […]

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One week down, three to go

October is off to a great start here in the land of Take Back Halloween. Our first week on Kickstarter has been fantastic, thanks to our wonderful community. We’re already 46% of the way towards our goal! We’ve already gotten some very early media coverage: Halloween costume website announces new resource guides, contest and fundraising […]

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